Iraqi Ministry Adopts Political Neutrality

Friday

The announcement made by Iraq’s defense minister would affect all employees of the ministry, from the highest officials to the lowliest soldiers.

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s defense minister announced Thursday that all employees of the ministry, from the highest officials to the lowliest soldiers, would be required to remain politically neutral.

Officials in the ministry will be required to sign pledges stating that they will not run for political office, work on political campaigns, attend political demonstrations, or join any political organizations, the minister, Abdul-Kader Jassem al-Obeidi , said in a morning news conference. It was not immediately clear if soldiers and other employees would have to sign the pledge.

“The Ministry of Defense is committed to a military without party or political affiliations,” Mr. Obeidi said. “The Iraqi people are soon to have provincial elections as well as elections at the district and commune levels. Military men must be nonaffiliated and must not be involved in the elections except in guarding the voter’s right to freedom.”

Mr. Obeidi’s news conference was widely perceived as an open rebuke to Iraq’s interior minister, Jawad al-Bolani, who founded the Iraqi Constitutional Party in June 2005.

Iraq’s ministries have been highly politicized since shortly after the 2003 invasion, when they were divided up primarily by sect and ethnicity, although a few ministers were appointed because they were technocrats.

The degree of sectarianism within the ministries varies considerably. While some have a clear majority of one sect or the other or a clear ethnicity, others have strived to hire in a more unbiased way. For instance, both the Defense Ministry and the Foreign Ministry have officials who are Sunni, Shiite and Kurd.

However, some other ministries, notably for instance, the Health Ministry, which for a long time was dominated by employees loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, had a culture that either made it uncomfortable for, or actually pushed out, Sunni employees.

The Interior Ministry has been viewed as primarily a bastion of Shiite militias. But since it also had a period when it was run by Sunnis, it still has fiefs within. There have been improvements lately, but the ministry remains troubled. Though Mr. Bolani officially stepped down as party leader when he was named interior minister, he retains considerable power. And the Iraqi Constitutional Party has become increasingly active over the last four months, opening branch offices in Nasiriya, Basra, Anbar, Babil, Diwaniya and Maysan Provinces. There have been reports of provincial police officers rushing to join the party because of its connection to the interior minister, who controls police and security forces throughout Iraq.

An official in Diyala Province, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared retribution, said in an interview that the Iraqi Constitutional Party had opened several offices in the province recently. The party illegally interferes in the hiring of police officers, the official said, and has instituted a secret quota system that allows the party offices to appoint officials in the security forces.

Lamis Abdul Jabbar, a leader of the Iraqi Constitutional Party in Basra, said party law did not permit police officers or soldiers to be members.

“If a police officer visits an office of our party, he does so as a supporter or fan of our party but not as an active member,” Ms. Jabbar said in a telephone interview. “Some of them think that Mr. Bolani is still the head of the party, so they may think it is better for their careers to be members in our party.”

Train Service Starts in Baghdad

BAGHDAD (AP) — A new commuter rail service began operations in Baghdad on Wednesday, allowing riders access to 15 miles of Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods in the heart of the capital.

With tickets costing the equivalent of 80 cents, the commuter train pulls out of Baghdad’s blue-domed main station and runs north to the mostly Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiya, then cuts down through central Baghdad to the mainly Sunni suburb of Yusifiya, in the south. It makes a handful of stops, bypassing the city’s checkpoints and avoiding slowdowns on its dusty streets.

“We have launched this train to ease congestion and traffic jams on Baghdad’s streets,” said Abdul-Ameer Hamoud, the director of central transport. “The arrival of a passenger by train is faster than by car to and from the center of Baghdad.”

Still, transport officials say they are unsure just how popular the new service will be as Iraqis adjust to the idea of rail travel in Baghdad, and it may face an uphill struggle in winning passengers.

At the moment, the only major rail line in the country runs from Baghdad to the southern city of Basra. Last September, rail officials put Saddam Hussein’s private luxury train — complete with chandeliers and Italian-made curtains — into public service to help ease Iraq’s train shortage.

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